posted
Probably asked and answered before, but what does Excelsior ACTUALLY mean? I mean besides the wood shaving definition. Is there something I'm missing because my (usually pretty thorough) dictionary isn't helping?
It's been nagging me for a while.
-------------------- "Tragedy is when I cut my finger, Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."-Mel Brooks
Registered: May 1999
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posted
This definition from the Oxford English Dictionary is probably the appropriate one:
1. a. The Latin motto (‘higher’ ) on the seal of the State of New York (adopted by the senate of that state 16 Mar. 1778), the accompanying device being a rising sun. Hence attrib. in The Excelsior State, New York. b. Used by Longfellow (quasi-int. as an expression of incessant aspiration after higher attainment) as the refrain of a popular poem; hence employed with similar sense by many later writers. Also as n. and attrib. The adverbial meaning (= ‘upwards’ ) commonly given to the motto cannot be justified by L. grammar. According to S. Longfellow Life H. W. Longfellow I. 384, the poet was at first unaware of the solecism in the motto as thus interpreted, and when it was pointed out to him suggested that the word might be taken to stand for Scopus meus excelsior est, ‘My goal is higher.’ It is not clear whether the original use on the seal is a blunder, or whether it was meant as an abbreviation for some grammatically admissible phrase.
1778 Drawing of Seal in N.Y. Senate Rep. (1881) No. 61 Excelsior. 1841 LONGFELLOW Excelsior 30 A voice replied, far up the height, Excelsior! 1858 TROLLOPE Three Clerks I. xi. 244 His motto might well have been ‘excelsior!’ if only he could have taught himself to look to heights that were really high. 1863 Miss Jemima's Swiss Jrnl. 30 June (1963) ii. 28 Our guide of Excelsior disposition, who would push on more quickly. 1874 G. M. HOPKINS Let. 29 Apr. (1956) 124 The garden is all heights, terraces, Excelsiors, misty mountain tops..flights of steps. 1929 D. H. LAWRENCE Pansies 143 Up he goes! Up like a bloomin' little Excelsior In his Sunday clothes!
posted
Thanks. Stupid American Heritage Dictionary.
-------------------- "Tragedy is when I cut my finger, Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."-Mel Brooks
Registered: May 1999
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posted
What the *bleep* is wrong with you, OnToMars? "Two bloody seconds?" You posted two minutes later. What's wrong with all you people who make that mistake?
posted
Maybe the fact that it means "higher" is a reference to what the Starfleet R&D people were when they thought they had invented transwarp.
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
It was most assuredly not. .. however, Shane Johnson doctored Okuda's graphics from the E-A to read transwarp in 'Mr. Scott's Guide'
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